As promised, a pair of sketches (one complete with authentic coffee stain!) that I drew before writing Halcyon Years. I'd worked out the basic parameters of the story at this point, putting in the locales I knew I'd need, but there are a few bits and pieces which didn't end up playing much of a role in the book. All of the following is revealed in the first few chapters of the book, by the way, so no fear of giving away anything crucial - although if you'd like to go in totally cold, obviously, read no more.
The first one (click to embiggen) is a basic cross-section of Halcyon. I didn't really have a set idea of how big it needed to be, but 50 km long seemed about right for the type of story I was intending. I was thinking, very roughly, of something about the size of greater Los Angeles. I wanted there to be room enough for distinct settlements with countryside between them, not just one big city, and I also wanted roads and railway lines, and especially the former, so I could have cars. I decided that the ship would be completely closed, with no windows to the outside universe, and that there'd need to be a long, thick tube running down the middle to give the illusion of sky.
The little sketch to the bottom right of the picture is me working out for myself what rough percentage of the interior would be visible from any given position on the inner surface. As you can see, it's never possible to see the opposite side of the tube.
The second sketch (also click to embiggen) is the complete interior rolled out as a map:
As mentioned, there's stuff in there that doesn't come into the final story, and which may or may not be in contradiction with it, such as the island in the middle of Midlake. That was going to be a kind of private retreat for the DelRossos, but in the end I decided not to bother with it, just letting them have their estate and the luxury yacht. I wasn't going to draw another map just because the story took me in a slightly different direction.
Should these or tidied-up versions have been included in the book? I'm not sure. Perhaps because I wasn't a big reader of fantasy, I've never expected to see a map at the beginning of a book, and those few times when I encountered one in an SF context, I never found it all that helpful. But that's just me.
Many thanks, all, for your patience with lack of updates and unanswered comments over the past few months. Everything has been fine here, but what with travel and an unexpected commission, time just seemed to slip away after October.
After delivering Merlin's Way and completing the Cardiff Half, my next big milestone was a trip to France at the end of October. I was one of the guests at the Utopiales festival in Nantes, but prior to that I spent a few days in Paris and was kept enjoyable busy with interviews and a fantastic evening at Millepages, a wonderful bookshop in Vincennes, on the outskirts of the city. My thanks to Clement from Millepages, my friends from Belial, who looked after my wife and I during the whole trip, and the brilliant people at Utopiales. I met many readers, did a huge amount of PR, and came back buzzing with enthusiam. I've always had friendly relations with my different French publishers over the years, but they've not always been able to sell my books in sufficient numbers to make the whole thing viable as an ongoing proposition. Since publishing the French editions of Thousandth Night and House of Suns, though, Belial seem to have tapped into some enthusiasm for my work and I'm really happy to see where this takes us. It doesn't hurt that Belial take a lot of care with their translations and covers, of course.
While I was in France, I got the disappointing news that the play our local theatre group had been working on for some time could not go ahead due to an unanticipated rights issue. We were rehearsing for Neil Simon's California Suite. I've always been a fan of Neil Simon's work, especially The Odd Couple, and it happened that my character was going to be the one played by Walter Matthau in the film version of California Suite - a double bonus because my dad was a big Walter Matthau fan. Ah well, perhaps we'll get another stab at it down the line. In the meantime, with my evenings somewhat more open than I'd been expecting, I decided to knuckle down and throw myself into online French lessons, which I'm rather enjoying. Having received such a warm welcome in France on my recent trips, it seems I really ought to make more of an effort.
Halcyon Years duly appeared in the UK while I was in France. I didn't do much publicity, certainly not compared to the days of ten or twenty years ago, when pub week would be pretty full-on, with trips not just to London but Manchester, Birmingham, etc but that seems to be the way things are now. On the back end of a trip to London I already had planned, I signed some stock for Goldsboro and Forbidden Planet, and I also maintained my long-standing relationship with the excellent Anderida Books in Worcester, who still have some signed and numbered first editions available.
Although the focus was on novellas rather than Halcyon Years, I did chat to my good friend Robin, of the Bookspin Youtube channel and also the Birmingham Science Fiction Group. You can watch the interview here:
And, jumping ahead a bit, I also had a good chat with Gary Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan on the Coode Street Podcast in December:
Thanks both for your kindness and support throughout my career.
Halcyon picked up some nice reviews from (among others) The Guardian, SFX, Locus and so on, and I'm really grateful. The US edition is due out this month and I'll be sure to jump on any promotional opportunities that come my way. Timed quite nicely is this interview I've just done with Arley at Clarkesworld, for which many thanks:
That was October into November, and a bit of December, but the big unexpected thing that came along was a short story commission for Zurich Insurance. I'd worked with Zurich in a future-forecasting role about twelve years ago, so if I'm a corporate sell-out I'm afraid it's already happened, but this was something slightly different, paring me up with professional futurologist Tom Cheesewright to take a look at the world of 2050, shining a light on where things might actually improve rather than get worse. Tom and I had to work quickly, with Tom producing a sort of bullet-point forecast about all sorts of things in 2050, from healthcare to food, employment, travel and AI. I then cherry-picked half a dozen or so eye-catching items from Tom's report, and wrote a story around them, taking the title "Meet Tomorrow" from the overall name of the Zurich project. We were all very pleased with how the whole package came together. By a nice coincidence, too, one of the illustrators attached to the project was Amir Zand, who has also done my Belial covers!
We went live on Monday 12th January, and Tom and I spent Tuesday doing a raft of interviews for local radio and TV across the UK, all of which seemed to go well. In fact there's been a bit of repeat business, in that we've been asked to go back onto Radio Wales this coming weekend - which is nice.
The package Zurich has put together looks really slick. We spent a day filming in the Barbican centre, so you can see me talking about the project, and also hear me reading the story. Take a look here if so interested:
From that page, you can also download and read Tom's detailed predictions across all the relevant areas.
Aside from any more media that comes our way, Tom and I may meet up in October when we are both booked in to do the Cardiff Half! I'll be breaking out the begging bowl again for my chosen charity partner (this time the Stroke Association) but I'll leave that until well into summer. Thank you for those who supported me in my two charity drives in 2025, for Mind over Matters and Cancer Research Wales.
November and December were busy in other ways (I know, is anyone ever not busy?). I went up to London for a reading and signing event at the Super Relaxed Fantasy Club, which was terrific fun, then I was back again for the aforementioned Barbican film shoot, then back again for the inaugural Global Space Awards.
I was there just as a punter, so I could sit back and enjoy the wonderful surroundings and hospitality in the Natural History Museum. It was a really fantastic evening surrounded by the great and the good of the space sector, brilliantly hosted by the physicist Brian Greene (a very cool operator) and with the likes of Tim Peake and Maggie Aderin-Pockock there to give speeches and hand out prizes. I was particularly pleased to see the life of Jim Lovell honoured, with the inaugural James Lovell Legacy Award being given to his family, some of whom were in attendance (below, with Brian Greene and Tim Peake):
I got the chance to say hello to Tim again, which is always a thrill - I've met him three times now and he's exactly as engaging and enthusiastic in person as you'd hope.
Well, that's me more or less up to date. I'm trying to get going on a new book, but I've not yet settled on a theme that really fires me up, but we'll see how that goes over the coming weeks. I've got nothing further to report on Merlin's Way, incidentally, but at some point I should expect some feedback and editorial requests, for which I'll need to stop work on whatever I've got going by then. Whether that'll be next week or next month, I've no idea. Twenty five years ago, when I started publishing novels, the typical turnaround for first impressions was on the order of 3 - 6 weeks, but you can comfortably call it 3 - 6 months now, and longer isn't unheard of. To some extent you used to be able to plan your yearly schedule around these rhythms, but no longer - at least not at my level of sales and name-recognition. No one is to blame; everyone in publishing (should I say "trad publishing"?) is chronically overworked now, but the end result is that writers, at least those in my acquaintance, spend more and more of our time in limbo, hoping to get started on a new thing but never actually sure where we are with the old. It's not really conducive to creativity, but we make do as best we can.
Thanks again for reading me in 2025, and I'll wish everyone a healthy and enjoyable 2026, wherever you may be.
And hey, let's have some B-52s, because nothing could be more absurd than the present moment.
After the storms of the last couple of days, Sunday 5th October was about as nice a day for running as one could hope for. It started off a bit chilly and breezy, especially as I made the long walk from Cardiff Bay to the event village near the castle, but once the run was underway I warmed up very quickly indeed, and had a good sweat on within a few kilometres.
At the village I bumped into my friend Lee from the local parkrun community, and he kindly took a photo of me just before the start:
And then we were off! Lee's an Iron Man nutcase so I wisely decided to let him run his own pace while I fell back, got my head down and concentrated on the miles to come. I find that with longer runs, the best way not to be too daunted by it all is to break it down into smaller chunks. The hydration stations were at 5km intervals, which is parkrun distance. Nearer the end of the run, I definitely found that it helped to remind myself that there was just a "parkrun" or a "parkrun and a bit" to go. Earlier on, I tend to focus on music, with the length of an album being a good metric for covering a decent chunk of distance. I must admit that the first half of the run is the more enjoyable for me, since it takes you on a long, sweeping course out of the centre of Cardiff, out toward Penarth and then across the barrage and back back to Mermaid Quay. It's a beautiful, ever-changing series of vistas and the sensation of running along the barrage, with water to either side, is fantastic! The second half of the run, which is more about street running through the terraces of Cardiff, isn't quite as enjoyable, not just because there are long stretches where it all looks the same, but because fatigue is starting to kick in as well. I was all right until around the 18 km mark, but then I started getting back ache and needed to alternate some walking and running for the rest of the event, especially because there is a really nasty hill at around the 20 km mark!
Another friend of mine from parkun, Gareth, took a photo of me as I was near this point in the run:
Rather shockingly I was oblivious to Gareth being there, lost in my bubble of music and exhaustion! Sorry, Gareth! One thing that definitely helped, even as tiredness was building, was the amazing boost from supporters along the way. People were there to cheer on friends and loved ones, but also just to shout out positive encouragement to random runners like myself. From the police, race marshalls, the supporters and participants, it was a wonderful show of what this country can be at its best: diverse, welcoming, inclusive, warm. Another thing that helped me push through the tough bits was to remind myself, in a zen fashion, of my marvellous sponsors, and the great support they have offered to Cancer Research Wales. The last time I checked, CRW had raised well over two hundred and twenty thousand pounds via the Cardiff Half, and it's not too late to add to the tally.
Thank you again, all, for your kind support and motivation!
Thanks again to those who have helped support my Cancer Research Wales fundraising bid for the Cardiff Half Marathon. With the run just three days away, I'm feeling good and ready for the challenge. There's still time to tip some money in for CRW:
Another slickly-produced video for your perusal, this one looking at the Eagle and the fantastic MPC kit. I was just about to go out and do a 14K training run.
Chris Foss's 1973 illustration for The Early Asimov, which appears to have influenced the design of the Eagle.
Hope this is of interest. Once again, any donations to my Cancer Research Wales half-marathon fundraiser will be greatly appreciated.
A little video about the Aoshima 1/350th scale model of Fireflash, the iconic atomic-powered airliner as featured in the opening episode of Thunderbirds.
Thanks for the comments on the last video; more of the same here except I've moved the camera a wee bit closer. It's all very amateur hour but it's just to get a feel for how I like the medium. The colour cast is a bit weird; either I messed with the camera settings by mistake or it's to do with moving the camera a bit closer. At least I'm not orange.
As before, let me know what you think, and as ever, I'm appreciative of any donations for my Cancer Research Wales charity half-marathon.
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